Blood, Sweat & Tears had a hard act to follow in recording their third album. Nevertheless, BS&T constructed a convincing, if not quite as impressive, companion to their previous hit. David Clayton-Thomas remained an enthusiastic blues shouter, and the band still managed to put together lively arrangements, especially on the Top 40 hits “Hi-De-Ho” and “Lucretia Mac Evil.” Elsewhere, they re-created the previous album’s jazzing up of Laura Nyro (“He’s a Runner”) and Traffic (“40,000 Headmen”), although their pretentiousness, on the extended “Symphony/Sympathy for the Devil,”Read More

The difference between Blood, Sweat & Tears and the group’s preceding long-player, Child Is Father to the Man, is the difference between a monumental seller and a record that was “merely” a huge critical success. Arguably, the Blood, Sweat & Tears that made this self-titled second album — consisting of five of the eight original members and four newcomersRead More

Vibraphonist Cal Tjader is in typically fine form on this live set from 1968. His quintet at the time featured Armand Perazza on congas and pianist Joe Kloess and his repertoire ranged from Afro-Cuban jazz to occasional straightahead tunes. Six of the eight selections on this date are originals by band members or Gary McFarland. Although Tjader had been playing this style of music for 15 years by this time, he still was quite creative and enthusiastic, and is heard throughout in excellent form.Read More

This lesser-known Sonny Clark session (his only studio album not made for Blue Note) is sometimes issued under drummer Max Roach’s name, too. They are joined by bassist George Duvivier for a set of generally obscure Clark originals including “Minor Meeting,” “Blues Mambo,” and “My Conception” (which is taken as an unaccompanied piano solo). Although not obvious while listening to his recording, Clark’s life was in decline and this would be his penultimate date as a leader.Read More

Blues in Orbit lacks the intellectual cache of the suites and concept pieces that loomed large in Ellington’s recordings of this period, but it’s an album worth tracking down, if only to hear the band run through a lighter side of its sound — indeed, it captures the essence of a late-night recording date that was as much a loose jam as a formal studio date, balancing the spontaneity of the former and the technical polish of the latter.Read More

Although the title of this reissue is not necessarily accurate (Buddy Rich’s 1966 big band was a stronger unit), this is a high-quality jazz album. Rich surprisingly does not solo much (just on Chick Corea’s “Fiesta”) but the material is strong, the arrangements (by Mike Abene, Frank Perowsky, Tom Boros, Barry Keiner and Barry Mintzer) are colorful, and the soloists are excellent.Read More

Frank Sinatra’s collaborations with Count Basie were among the singer’s better ventures back into jazz in the early 1960s, and led not only to a couple of great studio albums, and one superb live Sinatra album, but also to Basie’s being signed to the Sinatra-founded Reprise label in the mid-’60s. The 53 minutes of music captured on Live at the Sands was recorded during the opening sets from three different shows in late January and early February of 1966, by Basie and his band during the engagement with Sinatra at the Sands Hotel that yielded that live Sinatra album.Read More

In some ways, A Swingin’ Affair! is “Songs for Swingin’ Lovers!, Pt. 2,” following the same formula of Sinatra’s hit album of the previous year. Beneath the surface, there are enough variations on A Swingin’ Affair! to make it a distinctive, and equally enjoyable listen. The most noticeable difference between the two records is their basic approach. Where Songs for Swingin’ Lovers! swung hard but managed to stay rather light, A Swingin’ Affair! is a forceful, brassy album — it exudes a self-assured, confident aura. It is a hard, jazzy album. However, the attack is more brash.Read More

Diana Krall spent the better part of the 2010s exploring byways of American song — her 2012 set Glad Rag Doll drew heavily on obscure jazz from the 1920s and ’30s, its 2015 sequel Wallflower concentrated on pop and rock tunes — but 2017’s Turn Up the Quiet finds the pianist/singer returning to well-known standards from the Great American Songbook. Reuniting with producer Tommy LiPuma for the first time since 2009’s bossa nova-inspired Quiet NightsRead More

Frank Sinatra’s second set of torch songs recorded with Gordon Jenkins, No One Cares was nearly as good as its predecessor Where Are You? Expanding the melancholy tone of the duo’s previous collaboration, No One Cares consists of nothing but brooding, lonely songs.Read More

Following the hard-driving A Swingin’ Affair, Frank Sinatra released another all-ballads record, Where Are You? The album was the first he recorded at Capitol without Nelson Riddle, as well as the first he recorded in stereo. Where Riddle’s down beat albums are stately and sullen, Jenkins favors lush, melancholy arrangements played by large, string-dominated orchestras. Jenkins’ arrangements suggested classical textures, although the tempos alluded to Billie Holiday’s ballad style.Read More